[pg 1 of 20] War Department 20^th Nov. 1798 I have received your two letters of the 15^th [undecipherable] inst. relating one of your recruits who has been arrested. To guide your proceedings in this affair I send you an extract from a law on this subject passed at the last session of Congress by which you will perceive that your, recruits cannot be arrested for any sum. The 10^th Section of the law authorising the Pre- sident to raise a provisional army is in these words. "And be it further enacted, that the re- cruited soldiers who are, and who shall be inlisted in and [strikethrough: employed] in the service of the United States shall be, and they are hereby exempted, during their term of service, from all personal arrests, for any debt or contract And whenever [undecipherable: remainder of line obscured by ink blot] --- *Note: The second image file (`313907ca80c3c9a3323308df8e41a329c544cf84.jpg`) could not be located at the specified path and was not transcribed. Please verify the file path.*